Formula 1 - 2017 Belgian GP

This is a discussion on Formula 1 - 2017 Belgian GP within Int'l Motorsport, part of the Motor-Sports category; The Belgian GP is here and the teams are already well into their preparations.
Timings:
Almost all teams are coming ...

Looking forward to Ferrari's updated car. After their 1-2, Mercedes (especially Hamilton) is definitely on the backfoot. The track will suit the brute W08, but we all know that can't be taken for granted anymore.

This is also the 25th anniversary of Michael Schumacher's 1st victory @ Belgium. Mick Schumacher will be driving his legendary father's Benetton for a couple of demo laps . Keep fighting, Michael!

"Eau Rouge"!! Say no more. The corner that literally separates the men from boys. The steep climp, the curve at the middle and a blind summit is just spell binding to watch the F1 cars attack this stretch. With the more powerful 2017 cars it would be great to see the drivers' commitment to this piece of fabled tarmac.

Two teams to look out for are Ferrari and McLaren.

Ferrari are bringing in some key updates that they hope will help counter the high speed form of the Silver Arrows.

More interesting for me is the power upgrades that the McLaren duo are running. Stoffel Vandornne has a grid penalty but seems to be running the more powerful upgrade as opposed to Alonso. Would be great to see Alonso build on his 6th position finish in Hungary.

"Eau Rouge"!! Say no more. The corner that literally separates the men from boys. The steep climp, the curve at the middle and a blind summit is just spell binding to watch the F1 cars attack this stretch. With the more powerful 2017 cars it would be great to see the drivers' commitment to this piece of fabled tarmac.

Definitely Eau Rouge is a unique corner in F1, and it makes for nice viewing experience, but these days drivers consider it almost like a straight (even Felipe mentioned this in the press conference shared above), so i don't think it's necessarily a challenging corner anymore with modern F1 cars.

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More interesting for me is the power upgrades that the McLaren duo are running. Stoffel Vandornne has a grid penalty but seems to be running the more powerful upgrade as opposed to Alonso. Would be great to see Alonso build on his 6th position finish in Hungary.

Drive on,
Shibu.

The Honda ICE update (spec 4.0) has been delayed.
the present status of the ICE has been termed as 3.5 & 3.6
3.5 for ALO and 3.6 for VAN which includes an additional reliability fix.
These updates did not need any penalties for ALO as they are not related to the controlled parts of the engine.
Fernando is expected to get the 4.0 spec. engine at Monza.
In the present form, the PU is not a significantly powerful one from what ALO raced at Hungary. Hesegawa san put a 0.1 sec improvement when asked.
An improvement. Yes. But not a drastic one at that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reignofchaos

This will hurt ferrari and mercedes both and might level the playing field a bit during quali. Apparently ferrari has a secondary oil tank just for this purpose when hot lapping.

The next year on wards the LO qty. will be closely monitored through the session.
Hopefully the performances will converge more.

Lewis delivered quite a lap to grab pole for tomorrow's race. The Ferraris looked like they had control during the FPS... Vettel with P2, Bottas P3.
With this pole, Lewis also equals Michael Schumacher's record of poles.
Let's see what Spa has for us tommorrow!

Fantastic performance from Lewis to claim the record equaling Pole position on 200th GP.
Glad to see the teammates helping each other with tows.
Vettel had Kimi to thank for his P2.

Would have been perfect if ALO went onto Q3, but that was not to be.
On a dry race start, fresher tyres on P11 might be a better choice than used tyres on P10. Looks like no rain today.

Apparently The Honda PU ECU did not sense ALO lifting at Pouhon and hence the system was unable to confirm deployment request. probably ALO assumed that the issue was real and did not manually opt for deployment.

Nice to see good co-operation between him and Stoffel. He has promised to tow Stoff during Monza quali. where ALO is supposed to be raking in the penalties for taking spec. 4.0 PU.

Meanwhile Stoffel has to revert to a Spec 3.5 PU as the new spec 3.6 PU had some hydraulic issues. Probably not entirely Honda's fault.